Stephen E. Arnold: How Big Data Is Missing the Mark

At this point in the Big Data sensation, many businesses are swimming in data without the means to leverage it effectively. TechWeek Europe cites a recent survey from storage provider Pure Storage in its write-up, “Big Data ‘Fails Businesses’ Due to Access, Skills Shortage.” Interestingly, most of the problems seem to have more to do with human procedures and short-sightedness than any technical shortcomings. Writer Tom Jowitt lists the three top obstacles as a lack of skilled workers, limited access to information, and bureaucracy. He tells us:

Phi Beta Iota: There are three major short-falls in Big Data. First, the data in hand in based on old models that do not have any grasp of holistic analytics, true cost economics, or open source engineering. Second, the processing power is not there to reach exascale processing and do all data all the time even if the data were useful. Third, there is no geospatial foundation for machine speed integration and exploitation of disparate data sets because those of us that called for this in 1988 and onwards have been ignored.